I encourage everyone to completely dismiss the criticisms of this movie, particularly the agenda-laden youtube warriors out there who don't approach their reviews with any level of integrity. Their reviews are baked in as negative no matter what.
****Spoiler alert****
Abrams had to do two things. First, he had to basically tell Rian Johnson to **** off, and undo the entire disaster of The Last Jedi. Johnson and Kennedy had their clear agendas. Johnson is a self-loathing anti-capitalist who built a 45-minute scene to rant about his hate for capitalism, while giving us a lecture about animal cruelty and slavery. Then Kennedy had to castrate Star Wars entirely and turn the rebellion into council only comprised of women and purple-haired transsexuals.
Everything that Abrams set up - Rey's history, the Finn break from the First Order, the Jedi texts, and the beautiful ending scene when Rey finally delivers Anakin's lightsaber to Luke - was literally tossed away by Johnson as meaningless. He turned Luke into the same beta male that Johnson is, suckling from the milk teets of sea cow dinosaurs, and went about his progressive temper tantrum about his own sad life. The most interesting new character Abrams created, Finn, was given nothing to do the entire movie but find an Asian girlfriend and head to a casino. Po was turned into a "flyboy" not worthy of knowing what the smart women leaders planned to do, which was apparently to think of ramming ships at light speed into enemy ships! Who knew we could have ended this entire war 8 episodes ago with that tactic? Rose was introduced to make sure we had our token Asian and deliver the most awful line ever iterated in Star Wars, "It's not about destroying was we hate, it's about protecting what we love?" Yeah, that Hallmark nonsense will work, sure.
The Last Jedi was garbage. To properly fix it, the follow-up had to be fast and furious, which it was. I wish he would have added the necessary half hour to slow it down, but I think a second viewing will do just that. (I'm going to wait until the disc release and see it in my home theater.)
Abrams dealt with Johnson's sophomoric drivel, item by item, and put this amateur in his place. The lightsaber flip now basically never happened after Luke caught it for Rey and told her that a jedi always respects his weapon. Rose was cast aside as nothing but a bit extra in the background. Rey now really does have a background of significance. Luke found his balls again and raised his ship to Yoda's theme. Finn became central to the story again, and Po reclaimed his importance as the new Hans.
In other words, Rian, you need to go sit at the kid's table where you belong.
The internet dorks are piling on this movie without doing the research. Others are showing that, yes, Palpatine could still be alive as he pointed out in 3. Skywalker was not Anakin's mothers name, so perhaps it's a jedi name. The closest thing to parents Rey ever knew were Luke and Leia, and she is a jedi, so taking that name was perfectly logical and warranted.
Plus, I adhere to theory that she's pregnant and buried the the two light sabers to train her twin sons. In the final Romeo and Juliet scene between her and Kylo, he saw the light and became Ben, who is half Skywalker himself. She had already told him she would have taken Ben's hand, but not Kylo's. He finally gave his life to her by placing his hand on her womb. He died by giving her his life through the Force, as well as the lives of their unborn children within her.
Abrams paid homage to Lucas' favorite image of his creation, of Luke staring off into the horizon on Tatooine and watching the rise of the two suns. Rey chose to go there to raise two sons. "The Rise of Skywalker." Lucas loves poetic themes like that.
It's not perfect, but neither were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Lots of questions about all of them. Then, 8 tried to turn Star Wars into a Bravo-channel reality show.
You can make the case that Abrams produced the most well-considered and logical chapter of them all in the end, especially considering the disaster he was handed by the eunuch before him.
